Writing challenge, Day 5: a place you would live, but have never visited

This is a short one so you can get out before the traffic gets heavy. Around fourth grade, we studied Japan as a part of our social studies. I don't know why, but Japan just fascinated me. All we had to go on was what was written in our textbooks and the films that we watched. When you stop and think about it, anyplace could be made to look a whole lot better than it is in real life whether it's via film or written media. But to me it didn't matter. I was hooked. Japan was cool.

Now, whether I could live in Japan is another story. It is incredibly expensive, I don't speak the language, and I'd have to find a job doing something to earn enough money to live. One thing that I'd have in my favor is that the Japanese generally like Americans. Perhaps I could spend a week or two there to get a feel for it before deciding whether to live there for good. But I think I'd like to give it a try.

It just so happened that my sister Valerie worked with a friend who is Nisei—that means "second-generation Japanese-[fill in nationality]," in her case, Japanese-American. Valerie set us up on a date (that's another blog post at some point) and we became a couple, got married, had a child who is happy with and proud of her half-Japanese identity, and have lived happily-ish ever after for the most part (I'll leave the sordid details for another time, save to say that things aren't well between us these days). While Lori has not ever been to Japan, I've learned a lot about Japanese culture throughout our time together. As such, should I ever go to Japan—let alone live there—I wouldn't be going in completely ill informed.

All of us ready for Christmas in 2002

Tomorrow: someone who fascinates me. Stay tuned...